I wondered, recently, exactly how intolerant of criticism they've become over at Bill Dembski's weblog. We've all seen the deletion of comments, the banning of people who step out of line over there. We've seen them ban ID supporters who didn't hew to the party line. Two dozen contributors from Panda's Thumb are banned on Dembski's site, despite the fact that Dembski is not banned from Panda's Thumb. We've been witness to dozens and dozens of bannings merely in the few weeks since DaveScot's been in charge. So I decided to investigate.

I emailed Wesley Elsberry, and asked him how many people were banned. He wrote me back a thorough email about how many were banned from PT and AtBC. Depending on how you count, it's more or less 11. I went to Uncommon Descent, and asked DaveScot, "How many people have you banned/moderated?" As you can imagine, my question was deleted. However, he sent me an email, and that's where we begin:

If I did, do I count people like Alan Fox and KeithS once each or do I counteach time they've snuck back with a fake registration which would make itabout 6 times between them instead of 2?

My marching orders, actually a suggestion as I was given free reign to dowhat I think best, was to purge the place of trolls. I'm purging. Gladthey're all running to you. I can't think of a better place for them. Infact I encourage all trolls to take up residence at Panda's Thumb. I thankyou for putting out the welcome mat for them.

Go ahead and purge anyone you disagree with. ID will never be a scientific movement, but inner strife will take out the PR wing too. Purge away. In fact, you need to more rigid. Maybe demand everyone click thru a loyalty oath. Casey Luskin's ID club requires supporters to be christian. Do something like that.

If we take seriously the word-flesh Christology of Chalcedon (i.e. the doctrine that Christ is fully human and fully divine) and view Christ as the telos toward which God is drawing the whole of creation, then any view of the sciences that leaves Christ out of the picture must be seen as fundamentally deficient.

The *usual* form is "free rein", meaning the horse isn't being reined in, and is allowed to run free (without reins). DaveScot's use implies that he is absolute soverign (reigning), without any restriction - most especially including the restrictions good judgment would impose.

While idly perusing UD, I came across some surprisingly sensible comments by DaveScot on the subject of altruism and revenge, in the context of evolution. But what I couldn't help chuckling over was this comment by ds:

Quote

An argument might be made that revenge is most highly developed in humans but it’s not anything to brag about.... But I’d reiterate that revenge is no virtue and while it might separate humans from other animals it doesn’t morally elevate us above them. Quite the contrary in fact.

in light of this:

Quote

blah blah blahJack - since I’m banned on Panda’s Thumb from commenting I see no reason why I should allow authors from Panda’s Thumb to comment here. Please make your responses elsewhere. -ds

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

I believe in a chain of command and unquestioning loyalty to it. One follows the orders of those higher in the chain and gives orders to those lower in it. Mission objectives are given, rules of engagement are defined, then mission leaders take the initiative to get the job done. Bill offered me the job of blog czar and I accepted. I then received my marching orders and got on with it. Czar is hardly suggestive of democracy or gentle persuasion. If he wanted a czar that’s what he got. If not then I’m the wrong person for this position.

--------------And the set of natural numbers is also the set that starts at 0 and goes to the largest number. -- Joe G

I wandered in there, and found that Dave scot had put up an article from new scientist, presumably with the purpose of showing that you dont have to be a professional scientist with a degree to do good science. Unfortunately, it kind of shows that you have to be working in the same universe as "real" scientists to actually do anything useful. Heres the New scientist wbsite url:http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg18925351.600

The first amateur scientist, Forrest Mims, got papers into peer review and says:"Sometimes there is resistance to publishing my papers, but most of them have beenpublished. Now I peer-review papers for scientific journals and I’ve peer-reviewedtwo-dozen books for scientific publishers. On a number of occasions professionalscientists have taken me aside and asked me how to get published in Nature. Only once ortwice in my career has somebody been rude or resentful that I didn’t go through theprocess they did."

Or in other words, certain people to my mind have a persecution complex.

They seem to think that the guys lack of formal training is good advert and example for ID.

here's the money quote from the ever-reliable redreader:

Quote

Mims proves that credentials and tenure are not the MOST important qualities for a scientist.

The most important qualities are love of the truth, tenacity and faith in one’s own understanding.

Almost heart-rending in its pitiful wishful thinking... Especially how much importance he gives to 'faith in one’s own understanding' -- that's right, the best way to be a scientist is to be absolutely convinced that you're already right.

Note that he doesn't mention the importance of actual, like, uh, knowledge anywhere.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

That thread is hilarious. It looks like ID's "Big Tent" may be too cozy for Bombadill and DaveScot.

For the record, I agree with DaveScot that many people (especially fundamentalist Christians) don't like to hear about the complexity of animals' social interactions, since acknowledging them makes humans seem less special -- less "created in God's image."

--------------And the set of natural numbers is also the set that starts at 0 and goes to the largest number. -- Joe G

Of course you would. That’s a given since it doesn’t fit with your theological view that humans are a unique creation. Correct me if I’m wrong of course.

On scientific grounds what reason do you have to doubt Dr. Sheldrick’s assertion that they do indeed comfort others in distress? She’s been observing elephants for 30 years. You’ve been observing them how long? Heck, I’ve had cats and dogs that can sense the emotions of others and offer comfort. Based on that I have no reason at all to suspect elephants aren’t commensurately more capable of it but I’d give Dr. Sheldrick the benefit of the doubt even absent anecdotal experience of my own.

Don't worry, I'm sure he'll quickly scuttle back to his comfort zone being a tyrannical loon.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

The guy is just *&$ing nuts. In one of his latest comments, he suggests that engineering is so much less ad hoc than science, because engineers like himself stifle their egos when necessary. I'll add quite a few posts above his so you have the necessary context, but read through to get to DaveScot's last comment. Just mind blowing:

Quote

#

Or it may be the cosmological constant is some infinitesimal bit larger than zero which I’m sure has Einstein rolling over in his grave as he thought it was the biggest mistake of his life to stick it into GR only to have it zeroed out by observation. Shrugging this off to a non-zero CC smacks of pencil whipping to me. Oh gee, the equation didn’t work out quite right but if we just pull a constant out of our arse and adjust the value to fit the observations we can keep the theory.

Uh, no. The jury is still out on this one.

Comment by DaveScot — January 25, 2006 @ 12:18 pm#

Quote

Davescot

in a sense, adding a cosmological constant to einstein’s equations is the most conservative modification one can make. it *is* a modification to GR. Whether MJ can reference a better explanation i am not so sure.

yes, the jury is still out on much of this—i’ll definitely agree on that. physics is hard and we don’;t know all the answers! if we did there wouldn’t be much more physics to do

Comment by physicist — January 25, 2006 @ 12:24 pm#

Quote

PaVMy point is that systems with random change can and often do generate patterned behavior. Patterned behavior is in not at all an indication of external design other then to say that a designer may have created certain rules for a system where random change can create patterned and ordered behavior. In short no external input is necessary for a chaotic system to create order and great complexity (CSI).

Comment by ftrp11 — January 25, 2006 @ 12:24 pm#

Quote

i would say there are not really yet any firm theories of (this kind of) multiverse. i’m not sure to which theories you refer?

susskind’s intuition i think is that one will find universes bubbling off from our own, but there’s a lot more work to do yet i think.

there’s not much more i can say—the theories youre talking about need much more work to be well-defined. saying at this stage that these ideas will *never* be testable is premature. we don’t understand them well enough, yet.

Regardless of what he meant regarding the galaxy, there is no ToR breakdown. That is simply wrong.

A non-zero CC does not violate GR, it’s a term that, after realizing the universe was expanding, Einstein decided he didn’t need, since he wanted to use it to explain a steady state universe. My guess is, since it now seems to be needed, he’d be delighted at its rehabilitation.

Also, you imply that the CC was pulled out of the air to explain accelerated expansion. In fact, it has been recognized for sometime, prior to the recent observations, that a vacuum energy density looks like a cosmological constant—it was already making a comeback.

Furthermore, the CC contributes to the understanding of not just the accelerated expansion, but also the other big cosmological news: the flatness of the universe. (And also the “age” problem)

Yes the jury is still out. It often stays out for a long time in science.

Comment by David Heddle — January 25, 2006 @ 12:41 pm#

Quote

physicist

re CC += GR (how’s that for cryptic?) :-)

The only problem with calling that the most conservative thing to do is that the amount of CC you’re adding is 120 orders of magnitude smaller than most QFT’s predict. And therein lies Heddle’s point about support for cosmological ID. The infinitesimally small value is like the mother of all fine tunings.

In engineering when things don’t work out quite like we predict and we do something like this to fix our model it’s called a kludge and it isn’t a complimentary term. Do you use that term in physics? If not you should.

Comment by DaveScot — January 25, 2006 @ 12:47 pm#

Quote

Davescot

At the level of classical GR there is no preference for a particular value of Lambda

one can only go so far with QFT on curved backgrounds—I agree the naive value of Lambda predicted is incorrect, but there is a lot more to the story of quantum effects and gravity. including quantum effects in gravity is a general a very hard and unsolved issue.

so i wouldn’t say the QFT indication of a large Lambda is a firm `prediction’. it has always been recognised that combining QFT and GR in this way is an ambiguous procedure. so i think kludge is misapplied.

if you want to look for fine tunings, there are lots of other constants in nature which are finely tuned–for example the precise mass ratios of fundamental particles. if you want to explain these numbers by design, you can—but part of the study of physics is seeking to find deeper and simpler underlying reasons for these apparently finely tuned numbers.

Comment by physicist — January 25, 2006 @ 12:53 pm#

Quote

so i would just re-emphasise that at the classical level, if you want to explain cosmological observations of type Ia supernovae, making lambda non-zero is indeed the simplest modification to GR you can make—and fits the observations well.

Comment by physicist — January 25, 2006 @ 12:55 pm#

Quote

David H

I didn’t know science had become the art of salvaging theories with failed predictions by the addition of ad hoc hypotheses like smidgins of constants to equations that hadn’t needed them for the past 75 years.

Excuse me. GR is in fine shape. It just needed a little work is all. The jury I guess has come in. I’m curious, is there anyone on the jury in addition to David Heddle?

Comment by DaveScot — January 25, 2006 @ 13 pm#

Quote

This mindset of salvaging pet theories with ad hoc kludges to explain failed predictions is what propped Darwin up for so long. I see it’s not just biology that is plagued by this. Us engineers are a different breed I guess. Lives can be lost when we’re wrong so we can’t afford to let our egos get in the way of acknowledging failures.

Part of a debate or an "argument" is making "observations" which are meant to convince your opponent or your audience that your argument is superior.

Quote

If you think your own personal "feeling" of implausibility counts for something, I'm inviting you to wonder why people who have devoted a heck of a lot of time, study and research into it don't share that feeling. If, on the other hand, you contend that your own personal feeling of implausibility counts for something because a largish fraction of the (nonspecialist) population shares that feeling, I would call that an argumentum ad populum.

I didn't make an appeal to popularity, the other person did.

Quote

(2)Yet we do find an alternate theory to evolution --------------------------------------------------------------------What is that theory? (Note: "an unknown entity did an unknown thing at an unknown time" doesn't count as a theory. Nor does "I find evolution implausible, therefore it musta been God".)

That theory is that a known entity ( I know it), did a known thing (build all life), at an unknown time (a long time ago). You may not like that as a theory, but it is a theory. I don't mind if you call it something else.

Quote

(3)Your mind and intellect are not physical and they affect physical natural things.-------------------------------------------------------------------- "Mind" and "intellect", like "metabolism", describe properties of my physical self. They affect physical natural things in the same sense my metabolism does.

I disagree. What part of the brain contains thought? Is thought part of a cell? If so which part? Which part is consciousness?

--------------When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmm, boy. Once my friend told me that he had found Jesus. I thought to myself, "WooHoo, we're rich!" It turns out he meant something different. -Jack Handey

Zardoz, I don' think you and I will agree on much when it comes to the subject at hand, but for someone who does not buy all this evolution stuff you have been a very good sport about it in your posts here.

Cheers!

Thanks, I'm not emotionally attached to proving my point, I enjoy debate. I know where you guys are coming from, I was born and raised an atheist and an evolutionist. Most ID or creationist people will think that you guys are blind fanatics, I disagree with that assessment. I believe that everyone's thought process has to do with how our memory works. See my article at http://tinyurl.com/7922f

--------------When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmm, boy. Once my friend told me that he had found Jesus. I thought to myself, "WooHoo, we're rich!" It turns out he meant something different. -Jack Handey

Zardoz, I don' think you and I will agree on much when it comes to the subject at hand, but for someone who does not buy all this evolution stuff you have been a very good sport about it in your posts here.

Cheers!

Thanks, I'm not emotionally attached to proving my point, I enjoy debate. I know where you guys are coming from, I was born and raised an atheist and an evolutionist. Most ID or creationist people will think that you guys are blind fanatics, I disagree with that assessment. I believe that everyone's thought process has to do with how our memory works. See my article at http://tinyurl.com/7922f

Not getting emotionally involved in proving your point - you are a wise soul. I also avoid getting emotionally involved with my own ideas. This allows me to easily change or modify them in view of new evidence or understanding.

And you and I must be historical opposites, I was raised a believer and later drop kicked that belief around the age of 30 or so. No big deal.

I just now read your article. We should drink beer and chat some time.

"I construe the point you just made as Fallacy XYZ, and therefore I'm going to just ignore it".

I see an important difference between:

"a lot of people believe p, therefore p must be true", and

"most people who have spent a lot of time studying this field have have come to the opposite conclusion".

But, as I said, it's not an argument, it was just part of pointing out that a "feeling" of "implausibility" does not count for science. Do you disagree with that?It doesn't give you pause that, the more people study biology, the less they agree with you? Do you chalk that up to "brainwashing"?

Quote

I didn't make an appeal to popularity, the other person did.

No, your only appeal was to your own personal "feeling of implausibility". I assumed that might have been a reference, often asserted by DI types, that in effect "poll after poll shows the man on the street finds evolution implausible". But if it's just your personal feeling, contradicted by the people that actually study the field, it's even weaker than an argumentum ad populum, isn't it?

Quote

That theory is that a known entity ( I know it), did a known thing (build all life), at an unknown time (a long time ago). You may not like that as a theory, but it is a theory. I don't mind if you call it something else.

Good; then you won't mind if I call that "Religion". I guess I don't mind if you call a dog a cat, as long as you don't run around making a nuisance of yourself insisting that everyone else, or at least the public schools, recognize that dogs are just as much cats as cats are.

Quote

"Mind" and "intellect", like "metabolism", describe properties of my physical self. They affect physical natural things in the same sense my metabolism does.

Quote

I disagree. What part of the brain contains thought? Is thought part of a cell? If so which part? Which part is consciousness?

What part of a car contains motion? What evidence leads you to the notion that thought and consciousness exist anywhere without a brain?

I think it was someone in Slate magazine who said that's one of the theological pitfalls of ID--it changes god from sad witness to the Fall of Man&#8482;, into an active engineer of evil machines.

That only applies if you subscribe to a biblically based religious philosophy, which I don't. Amongst religious philosophers that problem is sometimes called "the problem of evil". It or a variation of it is a common philosophical argument people make against the existence of a God. Variations of it include: If there is a God why isn't everyone good? Why is there apparent mistakes in biological systems? Why do bad things happen to good people? etc.

Some of these questions are based on the idea that a God entity by definition is perfect in every way and can never make any kind of non perfect outcome to any action it may take. The answer to that mistaken philosophy is that a God entity is not going to necessarily be perfect anymore then anyone else will necessarily be perfect. If you were able to create life in a lab and build a suitable environment for it to live, that act doesn't change you into a perfect being in every respect. Just because you have some talent in the scientific field doesn't change you into a being incapable of being non perfect in every way.

Biblical based philosophers cannot deal with the "problem of evil" very well because they do not accept reincarnation. If you ask them to explain why people suffer they are really at a loss to come up with a philosophically sound argument. If you ask them why are some people born into misery and others born into happiness, why are some people born into wealth, beauty, and privilege and others born into unhealthiness, non-beauty, and poverty, they cannot respond satisfactorily. I asked a knowledgable christian (non-catholic) about this question once and he told me it was because of "the sin's of the fathers". I asked what he meant and he told me that people suffer because of the actions of their ancestors. I told him that that seemed to posit a God without much fairness or compassion. Most biblical believers believe that ultimately human suffering is due to the "original sin" of Adam. Depending on who you ask you will get a different take (either a literal or esoteric explanation) of what that means. Although however it is explained it still has the problem of God being either uninvolved and therefore a non-caring, uncompassionate entity, or involved but not fair and equitable in dealing with people.

Catholic theologian Hans Kung has written a book where he makes a comparison between hindu and biblical philosophies on the problem of evil, and his conclusion was that the hindu philosophy was more philosophically fulfilling.

In hinduism it is taught that people are born into this world (or many other similar earth type worlds) for the purpose of developing a perfected state of consciousness. People are taken on a journey throughout their existence in the world of samsara (birth, death, rebirth) until they reach a stage of enlightenment and perfection. Along the way they will face many challenges which will call for them to make decisions on how to treat others. As they choose they accrue karma, good or bad. It takes many lifetimes to come to the perfectional stage whereupon the person leaves the world of birth, death, and rebirth, and then attains to a life in the perfected world. What that perfected world is like is understood differently by different hindu religions.

"Evil" in this world is taught as being the reaction which people have to previous actions they took in their previous life. The idea taught is that the consciousness of the individual is a very complex thing. There are deep rooted pathologies which can develop and take lifetimes to overcome. The "bad karma" one experiences is meant to create a perfected sense of empathy within the individual. If someone is born into misery, or is suffering due to the actions of others, it is taught that God has arranged for that suffering based solely on the bad karma that person has developed. If I was cruel to someone in my previous life then my next life will be arranged so that I will experience cruelty of the same magnitude in order to develop empathy. So in hinduism it is taught that God arranges what type of birth you have and what you will experience in life based upon what God thinks you need to experience in order to advance on the path towards perfection.

Someone may object and say that the philosophy of karma leads people to think that people deserve whatever bad happens to them, so why should they help or care if God sanctions the suffering of people? If someone is suffering or being abused by another person doesn't karma teach that the person being abused deserves it?

The answer is that there is more to the teaching on karma then that. You will gain bad karma if you allow the suffering of others to go on if you can help to stop it. So it's taught that Dharma, or righteous action, goes hand in hand with Karma, or action/reaction. Yes people are suffering because they caused suffering previously, but if you can stop their suffering when you can, then you have the duty to do that. Otherwise you accrue bad karma.

--------------When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmm, boy. Once my friend told me that he had found Jesus. I thought to myself, "WooHoo, we're rich!" It turns out he meant something different. -Jack Handey

It doesn't give you pause that, the more people study biology, the less they agree with you? Do you chalk that up to "brainwashing"?

There are hundreds of scientists, many who are biologists in fields of work related to evolution who reject evolution. So your argument would be the fallacy of hasty generalization.

Quote

I didn't make an appeal to popularity, the other person did.--------------------------------------------------------------------No, your only appeal was to your own personal "feeling of implausibility". I assumed that might have been a reference, often asserted by DI types, that in effect "poll after poll shows the man on the street finds evolution implausible". But if it's just your personal feeling, contradicted by the people that actually study the field, it's even weaker than an argumentum ad populum, isn't it?

No, I intended no reference. There are many scientists in many fields associated with evolution who reject evolution. Therefore your argument is another hasty generalization and an appeal to popularity.

Quote

That theory is that a known entity ( I know it), did a known thing (build all life), at an unknown time (a long time ago). You may not like that as a theory, but it is a theory. I don't mind if you call it something else.--------------------------------------------------------------------Good; then you won't mind if I call that "Religion". I guess I don't mind if you call a dog a cat, as long as you don't run around making a nuisance of yourself insisting that everyone else, or at least the public schools, recognize that dogs are just as much cats as cats are.

I don't care if it's taught in schools or not. You can call it a theory with religious implications. The word religion isn't cognate with ID because a religious belief is not necessarily going to have a doctrine or dogma which posits a God or a God who builds life and the cosmos. Good examples are persons like a Ken Miller or a George Coyne. George Coyne has a religious belief but he rejects the belief that his "God" is involved with the direction of what he calls universal "increasing complexity". He believes that some kind of ineffable God thingee who is all about "love" somehow created the laws of nature and then set off the big bang and then went back to stewing in his own juices, leaving the universe to do whatever would happen without interference from then on.

Quote

What evidence leads you to the notion that thought and consciousness exist anywhere without a brain?

There is no direct empirical evidence as of yet. But that doesn't mean that it is not true. For instance a few posts ago I gave a link to an article I wrote on memory. From my analysis on memory I can postulate a non physical source of our memory system. The only other evidence I have is direct personal experience.

--------------When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmm, boy. Once my friend told me that he had found Jesus. I thought to myself, "WooHoo, we're rich!" It turns out he meant something different. -Jack Handey